This is the English edition. The article body below is the publisher's English rendering of the original Chinese article; figures, license numbers and institutional names follow the original.

Materials first, age second

The floor of any quote is material value. How much iron, copper, aluminium and plastic a unit contains, multiplied by the day's market price, gives theoretical revenue. Copper and aluminium trade far above iron and plastic, which is why air conditioners with heavy copper tubing and heat exchangers with aluminium fins attract better offers.

Dismantling cost sits on top of that: labour, energy, equipment depreciation and compliant disposal of problem fractions all have to be spread across each unit. Logistics is the third layer, covering handling, loading and distance. What remains after subtracting all three is the room a recycler has to pay you.

The middle layer is the one informal channels skip. Article 80 of the Solid Waste Law requires a licence for disposal operations, and the fixed cost an unlicensed buyer avoids is exactly what lets it quote a price that looks too good against the market.

What raises the offer

  • Metal content — more copper tubing, aluminium fins and motor windings mean a higher material value.
  • Reusable components — intact compressors, mainboards and inverter modules can be priced separately.
  • Overall condition — complete units with few missing parts leave more room for refurbishment or resale.
  • Batch size — several dozen units delivered to one site dilute transport and labour.
  • Paperwork — invoices and asset lists lower the transaction cost of a bulk lot.

What pulls it down

Some fractions cost money to handle rather than earning any. The leaded funnel glass in a CRT television has no high-value downstream, so disposal is charged by weight. Backlights in LCD panels contain mercury and must be collected separately. Refrigerator insulation foam is bulky and expensive to volume-reduce, and refrigerant has to be extracted professionally rather than vented.

These negative-value items are deducted at the quotation stage. Two televisions of the same size will not price alike: the flat panel usually beats the old picture tube, and the gap comes from leaded glass, not metal content. The deduction is not arbitrary either. Under the 2025 edition of the National Catalogue of Hazardous Wastes, mercury-containing backlights and waste circuit boards fall inside the controlled scope and may only move through licensed channels, so the cost cannot be designed out of the quote.

  • Rising metal prices — offers for copper- and aluminium-rich equipment move up.
  • More negative-value fractions — a high share of leaded glass or mercury lamps pulls the number down.
  • Consolidated batch delivery — logistics and labour are diluted, so the offer improves.
  • Long transport distance — handling and freight per unit rise, so the offer falls.

Market swings and seasonality

Metal prices move, and recycling prices move with them. When copper climbs, copper-bearing equipment is quoted higher; when the market softens, buyers either cut prices or slow their intake. That is price transmission from the material side, not arbitrary haggling.

Season matters too. Air conditioners are scrapped in volume around summer, which makes pricing relatively transparent. At year end, organisations dispose of assets in batches, and bulk lots actually leave more room to negotiate. A single unit handed over by an individual carries a high share of logistics cost and usually prices below batch lots.

What an on-site assessment looks at

A serious assessment does not quote from photographs. It checks four things on site: category and age, which determine the dismantling route; completeness, since a missing compressor or mainboard cuts the price directly; weight, taken on a scale rather than estimated; and hazardous components, with mercury lamps, leaded glass and leftover batteries billed separately.

The result should be a written quotation stating the basis: per unit or per tonne, whether handling is included, and how negative-value fractions are deducted. Verbal offers tend to change once the truck is loaded; a written basis reduces disputes. One point is often skipped: whether the other party is allowed to take the load at all. A processing qualification certificate such as E1310261, valid until 8 January 2027, defines by its approved scope whether they can legally handle what you are handing over.

Practical notes

  • Give category, unit count, age and floor level when asking for a quote, or the numbers are not comparable.
  • Ask for on-site weighing and keep the weighbridge ticket; refuse lump-sum estimates.
  • Remove batteries and mercury components beforehand so a mixed load is not downgraded as a whole.
  • For bulk disposal, insist on a written quote that names handling fees and deductions.
  • Treat the price as subject to on-site assessment and do not read one day's market as a long-term standard.